This invention concerns a system for use in an interactive bi-directional communication device such as a cable modem, computer, TV, VCR, or an associated peripheral device.
Home entertainment systems increasingly include both Personal Computer and television functions (PC/TV functions) involving multiple source and multiple destination communication. Such a system may receive data from satellite or terrestrial sources comprising High Definition Television (HDTV) broadcasts, Microwave Multi-point Distribution System (MMDS) broadcasts and Digital Video Broadcasts (DVB). Such a system may also provide high speed Internet access through a broadcast link or a coaxial link (e.g. cable TV lines) using a cable modem or via a telephone line link using an ADSL or ISDN (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line or Integrated Services Digital Network) compatible modem, for example. A home entertainment system may also communicate with local devices using different communication networks. Such local devices include Digital Video Disk (DVD), CDROM, VHS, and Digital VHS (DVHS(trademark)) type players, PCs, set top boxes and many other types of devices.
It is desirable for Internet compatible bi-directional communication systems that are used in conjunction with home entertainment systems to incorporate diagnostic capabilities sufficient to support in-home fault diagnosis and status identification. It is also desirable for cable and other modems and peripheral devices to support flexible information retrieval and interchange. These requirements and associated problems are addressed by a system according to the present invention.
Initialization (or other processing) functions in a communication device (e.g., a cable modem), are partitioned into a sequence of operational levels having corresponding status indications which are captured prior to a fault or other abnormal condition and retained during re-cycling of initialization for use in fault or operation analysis. In a modem performing a sequence of operations including groups of one or more individual operations (e.g. tuning, configuring etc.) having an associated status indication, a method is used for capturing an indication of system status. The method involves generating hierarchically ordered status indications reflecting the status of completion of sequentially performed groups of operations in which individual status indications are associated with corresponding groups of operations. The generated status indications are captured and retained following initiation of repetition of the groups of operations and are provided as identification of an attained operational status of the system for operation diagnosis (e.g., by display using LEDs).